


Done and Gone

by Xparrot



Category: Journey into Mystery, Thor (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kid Loki, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Asgardia was on fire.</i>
</p><p>How it shouldn’t end (but probably is going to.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Done and Gone

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve had this idea for a while now of how _Journey into Mystery_ is going to end, inspired by what little Kieron Gillen et al have said about the upcoming “Everything Burns” story. There are no actual spoilers here, just pure speculation based on nothing more than the title; but I am about 50% sure this is pretty much how it’s going to happen. …And this is the _happy_ ending. The other 50% is worse. Agggggh. ;_;

Asgardia was on fire (again), blazing so bright that the smoke-filled night sky was turned a dull orange above them, and even from the cave Loki could feel the heat on his face. It dried out his skin, and the blood spattered on it, so that he felt his cheeks stretch when he smiled. "All right," he said, "all right, then, this is it, it appears." He clapped his hands once, clasped the fingers tight together and said, "Ikol. I need you."

"What do you need of me?" the magpie asked obediently.

"Your own self," Loki said. "Or rather, mine. Everything crammed in that tiny bird-brain—all the spells, all the memories. Every scrap of knowledge and cunning I ever possessed, you will return to me now, that I might fight this threat. That I might save Asgard and Earth, while either is still here to be saved."

Ikol cocked his feathered head. "Loki...I do not think that a wise course of action."

"For once we're in agreement," Loki said. "I think it's the stupidest thing I'll ever do. But do you have any better idea? Another way to save everything?"

The magpie cocked his head the other way. Asgardia's flames reflected red in his bead-bright eye. "No," he said finally. "But we could let everything burn."

Loki laughed. "Because you were so content to let that happen before—oh, _wait_."

Ikol mantled his wings, like a small black and white falcon. "If we do this, then you—then I—then what we are now—"

"There's no 'if'," Loki said. "You've always been mine to command, the one part of myself I entirely control. And I'm commanding you now." He unwound his fingers from one another, reached down to put his fist under the magpie's claws and lift Ikol to look at him direct, eye to green eye. "It must be now, or there will be nothing left to save. And if everyone—if Thor—dies in this mess, and cannot be brought back again—neither of us will ever forgive the other. And that would be no fun. So do it, Ikol; give me back myself," and he patted the little bird head with one gentle finger. "It will be the last command you'll ever have to take from me."

"The last command you'll ever give, you mean," Ikol rasped, and turned his head to rub his beak along the side of the boy's finger, as gently. Then he spread his wings, lifted them high, and green light poured from under them, throwing their shadows huge and dark on the cave wall behind them.

"Loki," Ikol said, and the silhouette of his beak behind them opened wide enough that it might snap up the boy in one bite, "this time as your—your pet. It has been...entertaining."

" _Real,_ " Loki said, grinning a wide jack-o-lantern grin, "it's been _real_ , Ikol, my friend!"

And the shadow swallowed him down.

* * *

Thor had been swinging Mjolnir for so long that he no longer could feel its weight; his whole body ached so that the agony of his arm did not register. His ears likewise were numb to the roar of the fire and the clash of swords and the screams of the dying—but he yet heard it when a new sound flowed over the battle, a whispered chant that filled him with new strength, and strengthened his allies as well from the brightening of their faces, even as their enemies faltered, weakened, and then fell.

Afterwards, kneeling there on the battlefield bewildered but victorious, Thor saw a man striding toward him between the smoke and bodies. Nearly his height, and taller for the horns rising from his helmet; armored and cloaked in gold and green, and his face as he neared was known to Thor. Though last Thor had seen, the face had been a boy's, and this was a man—younger than Thor was now, but of enough years that the old familiar bitterness twisted his mouth.

"Brother?" Thor asked, staring up at Loki, baffled. "How do you come to..."

"What?" Loki asked. "How do I come to your rescue in your time of need? Shocking, is it not, that the sniveling coward you dismissed should yet have come in this dire hour."

"I—I did not dismiss you," Thor said feebly; what he had said had been worse, and he was too exhausted now to think how to take it back. "But you—you aren't—your—"

"Oh, yes," Loki said, looking down at himself, extending his arms to regard his armor with fond vanity. "It still fits. With some adjustments—I think this age suits me. Young again, but not _too_ young. Not so innocent that I might be fooled by pretenses of fraternal affection that matter only as long as I stay firmly under your thumb. Am I right, _dear brother_?"

"There was no pretense," Thor protested. "But after what you did, you could not expect—"

"What?" Loki said in a bizarre mix of a snarl and laugh. "Could not expect some gratitude? The least acknowledgement, that I suffered and sacrificed for the sake of Asgard—I _cried_ , Thor; I wept for you, more than once, because I did not remember why I should not, why you deserved no such accolade. But I remember now, and I remember too how little you saw to comfort me, when I was small and alone—"

A soft caw interrupted him. Thor looked and saw upon Loki's shoulder the magpie which had haunted his brother since early in his reincarnation. To see the dark bird confirmed it, that this was indeed the Loki he had brought back. The boy grown up too fast and soon, restored to what he had been, and nothing changed between them after all, for all Thor might have done—for all Loki himself had tried. Thor felt his heart tear in his chest.

The magpie inclined its head to fix one sharp gleaming eye upon Thor, cawed again. "Hush, Ikol," Loki said, touching the bird's beak to close it. "You are ever still my opposite, your time done and gone; and I'll no more take your counsel than you did mine." He grabbed Thor's chin in his hand, forcing up Thor's head to face him, and smiling cruelly said, "So, brother—Asgard is once again fallen and in flames, but now I'm not in its pyre—shall we pick up where we left off?"


End file.
